The 'Missing' Apostles

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Can anyone explain why only select members of the Twelve Apostles have Gospels?
-------------------Yeah, I can. I can't go all the way back and explain how those four became so important in the 1st century, but I can tell you why the Council of Carthage, which you mentioned, chose those four.It's pretty simple, really, if you happen to be a person interested in church history. Those four Gospels are called the only Gospels from at least the early second century. I know for certain that Justin mentioned them just shy of the mid-second century, and I'm almost certain that those four are in an earlier list, too.Somebody mentioned that there are four, because there are four points on a compass, but he didn't mention why he said that. The four points of a compass are mentioned as one of the reasons there are just four.By the third century, the "canon" was pretty well established, and it included Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The belief at that time was that Matthew wrote his first. Mark and Luke's gospels were considered to be Peter's and Paul's, because Mark was supposed to have been with Peter in Rome, and Luke was a companion of Paul's.To have added Gospels in the third century would pretty much have been impossible. It would have been seen as heresy.Now, perhaps Thomas' Gospel was written later, or perhaps the 2nd century church (in the Roman empire, at least) didn't believe he wrote it, or they didn't know about it, because Thomas is supposed to have gone east to India. The apostles who went east, out of the Roman empire, we mostly only have second-hand stories about. We have no writings from them. Whatever the reason, it's not much discussed in the second century. Surely no one before Clement of Alexandria mentions it, and I don't think he mentions it, either.Anyway, by the time of the Council of Carthage, there was no debate about which books were canonical. So you can blame it on Thomas leaving the Roman empire, or you can blame it on Thomas not having written it (I have no idea whether he did or not), or you can blame it on the churches in the Roman empire not knowing about it, but in the end, the reason there are only four is because those are the four the churches of the Roman empire knew about and accepted starting towards the beginning of the 2nd century.During the second century, there was only one standard for what was considered canonical, which is whether an apostle wrote it, or whether one of his companions wrote it. Such a document was authoritative and all others weren't. For some reason, not because of content, the Gospel of Thomas did not meet that standard in the eyes of the 2nd century churches of the Roman empire, and therefore it is not in the canon.

DaveF,Oh, and I forgot this one:--------------------
As Paul (afaik) never met Christ, Luke and Mark would seem to have far less validity then any member of the Twelve.
--------------------The early churches didn't care about this. As far as they were concerned, Paul met Christ on the way to Damascus and had visions of him later. He met the 12 and was approved by them, and he started most of the major churches of the Roman empire. He was an apostle, and he was perhaps the greatest one.You may not agree with their opinion, but they were the ones who established the canon, and that was their opinion. Anything Paul wrote was Gospel, just as anything Peter wrote was, but Paul wrote more than Peter, so we have more from him.

Brian,Well, you have questions, but there's an overarching philosophy behind your questions, and since I can't pinpoint that, I can't totally answer your questions. I certainly wasn't trying to be precise. I was answering a question as to why the 4 Gospels in the accepted canon of every church of mainline Christianity throughout history are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and they don't include Thomas, Philip or any others. My answer to that question is the correct one.You asked what churches didn't care whether Paul met Christ or not. None of them didn't care, I imagine, not even the gnostic ones, which would be outside of mainline Christianity. If you want to define mainline Christianity as the churches that won the battle for existence and supremacy, I'm fine with that. I was not saying that they didn't care whether Paul met Christ. I was saying that whether Paul met Christ is not why they chose Luke's gospel, which was received because he was Paul's companion.Paul did not necessarily meet all the apostles. I don't know which ones he met. I do know he met Peter and James, and I am confident James had issues with him, but James, for whatever reasons, approved Paul as an emissary to the Gentiles, or allowed others to say he approved of Paul.However, if someone wants to know, and apparently DaveF did, why the 4 Gospels that are accepted be well over a billion people are accepted, it is because Paul was known as a major, or the major, approved apostle; approved by the twelve. Thus Luke was accepted. Matthew was thought by the major churches to have been written by Matthew, so it was. Mark was considered Peter's, because he was a companion of Peter, and John's was accepted as the work of the apostle John, written late in life as a refutation to gnosticism (note the abundance of separate gnostic eons mentioned at the start of the Gospel of John--Light, Word, Life, etc.).The major churches of the Roman empire would be Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and some others. While Paul was not given credit for starting the Roman church, the churches that are the ancestors of large scale Christianity today considered the Roman church to hold the teachings and opinions of both Peter and Paul.I was simply answering a question with well-known and accepted history, not presenting a theological system.The churches that are the ancestors of large-scale Christianity today did not have many canons. A few books were in question, but the canon in those churches did not vary much at all.You asked who established the canon I spoke of. I addressed the canon that DaveF said was approved at the Council of Carthage. I'm not sure even which council that might be without consulting history that I haven't looked at in eight years, but I do know that by the time any major councils were held, the canon was quite set already. The churches I've mentioned and was talking about were basically agreed on the canon from at least around AD 160, where the Muratorian canon matches modern ones pretty closely.I understand that Catholicism has 7 more old covenant books than Protestantism. Orthodox churches have even more than that if you can get one of their members to list a canon for you, and the Assyrian Orthodox church of the east ends their NT at 1 John. The Ethiopian Orthodox church includes the Book of Enoch. However, all of them agree on the four Gospels and their canons don't differ enough for me to consider them "different canons." I consider Marcion's a different canon, but now you're in a completely different sect that basically no longer exists and is not represented in mainline Christianity today.I hope that's clearer. I'm not defending modern Christianity. If it was united and noted for its love and its ability to transform people, you would be embarrassed to attack it. Since it's not, I'm embarrassed to defend it, and I won't. Christ's disciples are supposed to be so united that the world would know God sent him (John 17:20-23). That is the only defense of the teachings of Jesus Christ that I will ever offer or accept.

Well, I didn't take any offense, but I don't understand what you're thinking. You wrote:---------------------------
Consider this:Because the N.T. Canon was not yet settled, they respected and quoted from works that have generally passed out of the Christian tradition. The books of Hermas, Barnabas, Didache, and 1 and 2 Clement were all regarded highly (Hannah, Lecture Notes for the History of Doctrine, 2.2).
The Christian Canon
---------------------------I don't get it. That article gives exactly the information I am telling you about. Are you suggesting that because Hermas, Barnabas, the Didache, and 1 Clement were considered Scripture by some churches and not by others that there were therefore many canons? That's not true. When you have a situation like that, you have a varying canon, not many canons. The churches that did not receive the four above mentioned books nonetheless considered the books good, sound teaching and would have quoted from them.Hermas, Barnabas, and Clement were all thought by some churches to be the companions of Paul mentioned in the letters. The Didache's other name is "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," (Didache is simply Greek for teaching). Other churches didn't believe the Hermas, Barnabas, and Clement were the companions of Paul mentioned in his letters, so they didn't treat the books as having apostolic authority.Jude, Revelation, 2 and 3 John, both Timothy's and Titus, and maybe Hebrews, I can't remember, were all in the same boat. Oh, and 2 Peter and Jude, too.All this tells you is that the standard for such books in the early church was difficult to apply, so there were three levels really. There were accepted books, like most of Paul's letters, the four Gospels, 1 Peter, and Acts, and then questionably ones, which I've mentioned, then orthodox ones clearly not of apostolic origin.These "many canons" you mention are simply differing choices on the questionable books. The Old Testament had its own set of questionable books as well.The evidence that Paul met Peter and James is the universal testimony of early writers that it was so, plus Acts. Is this conclusive evidence? I guess that is probably subject to opinion. However, there is absolutely no evidence against it except for weird Bible interpretations by people who want to revive gnosticism.And yes, you pointed to the right Muratorian canon, which, as I was guessing based on my faulty memory, was written about AD 160 (which would be 130 years after the foundation of the church). I am astounded by your assertion that this is too late to matter, since you asked about the decision of the Council of Carthage, of which there were seven, but the one you are referring to is the 3rd, and it occurred in AD 397, over two centuries after the Muratorian canon.If anything, the Muratorian canon could only be too early to apply, but it's not. It's simply the earliest extant published canon, and the series that follows all pulls from the same set of books I listed above, and the differences between them narrow steadily from the 2nd century (starting with the Muratorian canon, but lists are also given by Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, not the same Clement mentioned above) to the 4th, and as far as I know, there are no differences whatsover in the published canons of the 4th century, at the end of which the council you asked about occurred.

Well, I guess I'm an idiot. I'm terribly sorry, for some reason I thought I was answering DaveF. No wonder the post seemed so confusing to me. Sorry.You asked what the difference is between a varying canon (not varying canons) and differing canons. The difference is that one is a group of people deciding on which of a certain pool of books will end up being in the final canon. That process took time, partly because it took time for books to become that important to the church.The reason it matters is because you have a point to make. I don't know exactly the point, but I know it has to do with some view you have of what the early church was. The original question brought up things like the Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Thomas wasn't in anybody's canon. The reason it gets brought up is by people trying to give credibility to the gnostic section of early Christianity--to make it a valid part of early Christianity. The fact is, the non-gnostic part of early Christianity never, or barely, mention the Gospel of Thomas. It is included in no one's canon. None at all.The original issue of this thread, which I have not left, nor am willing to leave, was how the canon developed and why other Gospels like Thomas were left out. I said the canon varied, slowly narrowing down to the current choices, but always, from the very beginning, including a certain pool of books written by the non-gnostic Christians. The gnostic books were all, across the board, left out of that pool and were included in no one's canon.Thus, I prefer to say the canon varied, as choices were made of the best of certain books. I believe you are saying it was many canons, so you can suggest that it was some random, chance, or faulty reason that left out books like Thomas or who knows what else. It wasn't. Thomas and others were out from the beginning. The ones that were in never became out or rejected. They all remained respected works, they simply were not included among writings having apostolic authority. That's all.And I still cannot understand what your point is by saying that the Muratorian canon is so late you pay no attention to it. Great, ok. Well, you and I are agreed on something. I don't care about the Muratorian canon, either, and I don't care what books finally made it into the canon. I am a disciple of Christ, but I don't accept or care about any canon, because I am a follower of a Spirit, not a book.

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Please stop second guessing my 'agenda.' If I wanted to say that there was faulty reasoning, I'd say so. I wouldn't use any of the terms you used. I also wouldn't place the Canon on a pedastal the way most Christians do. You seem to lean this direction but I am not sure. What I object to is the treatment of the NT canon as if it were somehow always there-- created ex nihilo and intact via direct dictation from God, and without the influence of human foible.

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No, I won't stop guessing at your agenda, unless you just like having discussions that never get to the point. I wish you had written the above much earlier.I do not treat the NT canon as if it were somehow always there--created ex nihilo and intace via direct dictation from God. I do, however, note from history that there was a mainline tradition in Christianity (some say the gnostics were more mainline and more numerous; some of those who say that are a lot more knowledgeable than me, so that's at least possible. There doesn't seem to be consent on that, though.)That tradition produced some books. I am not making a canon of those books, but I am saying that all the canons you mention, the ones within that tradition, all came from that one set of books. That set of books constituted the choices, so to speak, from which the churches--the ones that are the ancestors of the Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants--and those choices slowly narrowed over 300 years. There is not perfect agreement even today.

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How do I know? Because they didn't. They fought bitterly while the formal canons were being created.

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They didn't? Says who? They fought bitterly? Says who?I can see from histories like Eusebius and Socrates (not the philosopher, the 4th centure historian) that the 4th century churches fought bitterly over almost everything. They killed each other till the blood flowed into the streets over which church building to leave a dead bishop's coffin in.However, from what I can see in the 2nd century, there was some major struggles over the success of gnosticism with a couple Roman bishops and with the day Passover was celebrated on. Those things seem to have been ironed out. The Roman bishops had awful feuds even in the early 3rd century, but I've never seen that any of the pre-Nicene feuds concerned the canon, not even an indication that it happened once.Do you follow what I'm saying? There are records of a Roman bishop excommunicating the whole eastern part of the Roman empire over the day Passover was celebrated on. The 1st council of Carthage, around 250, was convened to disagree with the bishop of Rome over some other thing that with a little thought I could probably remember. However, there are no such indications that any such things happened over the canon, so I don't believe there was "bitter feuds" unless you can provide some evidence of that. Finding a couple lists that disagree over a couple books or even several is not proof of fighting bitterly.

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You seem to lean this direction but I am not sure

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Why aren't you sure? I don't just "seem to lean this direction"; I stated outright I don't accept any canon, nor do I care anything about a canon. I have men I respect, which include Moses, Paul, Isaiah, etc. I don't have a Bible to defend, and I sure don't believe God was trying to write a book for people to follow. I think the fascination with a book and the desire to create a canon is among the worst things that ever happened to the disciples of Christ, and a disciple of the Bible is going to have extreme problems also being a disciple of Christ.

One personal thing, John, on this agenda thing you object to. I like to get to the point. If you tell me what you're getting at, then I can either agree with you and drop it, or give you a lot more specific information as to why I disagree with you.The reason I pushed at your agenda is because you were disagreeing with things that I couldn't understand your disagreement. You even pointed me to a web site that was quoting exactly what I was quoting, and in my opinion, was drawing the same conclusions I was drawing.Finally, for you to be so vehement--and you were very vehement--that taking a selection of books and narrowing that selection down was differing or competing canons; well, that had to make me wonder why it mattered to you. I do not believe the average, open-minded person would have had any problem with the way I put that, nor would they have tried so hard to force that situation to be called different canons. Most people would have been fine with my description of it, even if they would see it different. It mattered intensely to you, though.That's why I pushed the agenda thing.